D&D’s Dragonlance is back with new adventure, mysterious “battle game”

A new Dungeons & Dragons adventure is available in the Krynn world in late 2022. Titled Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen, it marks the return of the classic setting first introduced by TSR in the 1980s. Wizards of the Coast made the announcement Thursday during the D&D Direct streaming presentation — and that’s not all. Wizards introduced a new battle game Dragonlance Warriors of Krynn .. You can see more in the teaser trailer, voiced by Shohreh Aghdashloo (The Expanse), embedded above.

Originally created by Laura and Tracy Hickman during a cross-country road trip, the Dragonlance setting became a key product line for D&D’s original publisher TSR in the 1980s. Most fans know it best from a series of novels, written by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weiss — Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Dragons of Winter Night, and Dragons of Spring Dawning. But the companion adventure modules also sold well, with many of them still available for purchase from the Dungeon Master’s Guild.

The subtitle of the adventure is a reference to the Dragon Queen, Takhisis, the evil antagonist working in the background of the entire setting. Her canonical role is to have corrupted the race of chromatic druids of the planet of Krynn. She often assumes the appearance of a five-headed dragon.

What makes Dragonlance different from The Forgotten Realms, Wizard’s main setting for 5th edition D&D? The kender is a small and powerful fantasy race that exists only in the Krynn world. The magic system is a little different, as schools are strictly divided into the Arcane or the Divine. There are also the dragons. These sentient beasts have steeds warriors can ride to battle and they’re both sentient. Draconians, unlike their cousins the dragonborn, are also distinctly brutish and evil. Overall the narratives found inside are much more epic in nature — more like The Lord of the Rings, less like The Green Knight.